Week 13

1. Week 13 Feminist Perspectives

2. Feminist Perspectives • Relevance for criminology? • Overwhelming ‘maleness’ of the prison population • Criminologists are nearly all men • Female criminality is a departure from ‘natural female behavior’ • How are female criminals dealt with?

3. Feminist Perspectives • Even within feminism there is a diversity of thinking… • Liberal* • Critical* • Marxist • Radical • linked to patriarchy

4. Simon and Adler • Every social area is separated by sex-role differences • Aggressive boys/dependent girls • Liberation Hypothesis: • As women’s opportunities broaden, so will their involvement in crime • Major byproduct of the women’s movement • Did this happen?

5. Daly and Chesney-Lind • Problematize gender and consider the implications of findings for empowering women • Generalizability Problem • Gender Ratio Problem

6. Daly and Chesney-Lind • How is the law used to institutionalize this gender difference? • Law • Runaways • Prostitution • Big contribution? Request for research

7. Messerschmidt • What is masculinity? • Challenges the feminist critique • Feminist theories have not taken seriously the study of masculinity • Masculinity and ‘doing gender’ • (both men and women can do this, but it’s easier for men, why?)

8. Messerschmidt • Criminality and masculinity are intertwined • Masculinity involves the dominance of women, heterosexuality, the pursuit of sexual gratification, independence etc. • Middle class white boys • Lower class minority boys

9. Policy Implications • What should we do? • Treat men and women differently? equally? The same? • What happens to them in real life? In the criminal justice system? • “Women in Prison” video • 85% mothers, mostly single mothers etc. • Boggo Rd example

10. Critique • Lack of research